Man’s Green Thumb Turns Garden Into a Cornucopia of Tropical Fruits

In the county’s mild climate you expect oranges, strawberries, lemons and limes.

Would you believe bananas, pitangas, guavas, chirimoyas, loquats, sapotes, mangoes and canas, fruits normally grown in tropical climates such as Hawaii and Central and South America?

Well, think again. Robert L. Torres, 62, has been growing those good tasting tropical varieties for years in his back, side and front yards and even across the street in a parkway lining his one-third-acre property in Orange.

Said Torres, “The fruit tastes like heaven if you’ve ever tasted heaven.”

“We’re surprised tropical fruits could be grown here,” said Jeanne Coontz, president of the Orange Communities Historical Society, who noted that some members have tried but failed to grow tropical fruits in Orange County. “He (Torres) must have a special touch,” she said.

Torres said he’s been accused of having a green thumb. “I’ve been growing these fruits for years,” said Torres, a retired warehouseman. “This is strictly a hobby with me, but I just learned that everything grown in the tropics can be grown here.”

He noted that agricultural inspectors regularly check his 30 fruit-bearing trees. “They’re kind of surprised to see these trees growing here,” Torres said.

If there’s a secret, it’s “a lot of water and a lot of attention and love,” said Torres, who gets help with watering from wife, Luz, 58. Their monthly water bill is about $60.

The property only had shade trees “but I decided to take those trees down and plant ones that could provide us with food,” Torres said. “Anyone in America can do that.”

The dozen banana trees grown from seeds he imported from New Guinea are his prized fruit although he has been experimenting with a tree that grows avocadoes in bunches. “Growing a new avocado (Haas) once made a lot of Orange County people rich,” Torres said. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

There’s little problem with the abundance of fruit as well as other items he grows such as sugar cane, chestnuts, almonds, kumquats, garlic, figs, chiles, tangerines, persimmons, plums, apricots and grapefruit. “We’re a great big family,” said Torres, who sometimes offers fruit to favored friends. The Torres family consists of five children and nine grandchildren.

All things considered, Terri Blake, 82, of Costa Mesa, who claims she helped establish National Grandparents Day, no doubt will be the center of attention on the Sept. 7 celebration. She has 10 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Blake gained some notoriety promoting Grandparents Day after the media took pictures of her in the early ‘70s and in 1982 when she posed for Playboy Magazine and became a Grandmother Bunny. “I looked like I was in my 30s,” she boasted.

But more seriously, she said, “I’ve lived my life to inspire others of my age. Grandparents don’t have to be shoved around.”

And then she asked: “Are you going to take my picture? I’m still a sexy senior.”

Now there’s a jail-a-thon.

Actually, said Roberta K. Nedry of the sponsoring American Cancer Society, it’s a fund-raising event where “arrestees” call friends to raise $25 bail for their release from a South Coast Plaza Village detention center.

Know someone who should serve time on July 31 or Aug. 1? Call 966-JAIL.

The Nadadores Swim Team in Mission Viejo asked Ralphs supermarkets to participate in their swim-a-thon fund-raiser but the store countered it would rather let swimmers hold a shopping spree to raise money.

The deal was that two boy-girl teams each would shop for three minutes at two Ralphs stores in Mission Viejo. The club would receive the dollar amount of what each team gathered.

“Ralphs first let the two teams walk through the stores to learn the layout,” said team spokesman Robert L. Lehr, 49, of San Juan Capistrano.

And Ralphs spokesperson Donna Gibbs said that helped. “The teams spent a lot of time at the meat and drug counters,” she said. “Combined they collected foodstuff worth $1,539.39.”

And no wonder. The swim team is used to winning. The 300-member team holds 46 national team championships, 11 Olympic gold medals and 40 world and national individual championship titles.

Acknowledgments--Saddleback High School senior Mike Enomoto, 17, of Santa Ana was named to the statewide Child Nutrition Advisory Council by the state Board of Education. He will attend meetings in Sacramento.